Saturday, 26 October 2013

Drinking Buddies - The Future Of The Rom-Com?

As I took myself enthusiastically along my ten minute walk
to work a week or so ago I was indulging in my usual morning podcast binge and
halfway through the hosts of the movie review show mentioned amongst their
usual weekly movie news roundup that Quentin Tarantino had released his top 10
movies of 2013. This intrigued me for two reasons, firstly I am a great admirer
of his movies (specifically Jackie Brown
and Pulp Fiction) and secondly, that
despite all his film making genius QT seems unaware years have lasted twelve
months since the inception of the Gregorian Calender in 1582. The fact that Tarantino had released a list
of favourite movies wasn’t much of a surprise because this is something he has
done for a number of years but I always sit up and take notice when they are
released. This year’s list includes the following movies:

·'Afternoon Delight'
(Dir. Jill Soloway)

·'Before Midnight'
(Richard Linklater)

·'Blue Jasmine' (Woody
Allen)

·'The Conjuring' (James
Wan)

·'Drinking Buddies' (Joe
Swanberg)

·'Frances Ha' (Noah
Baumbach)

·'Gravity' (Alfonso
Cuarón)

·'Kick-Ass 2' (Jeff
Wadlow)

·'The Lone Ranger' (Gore
Verbinski)

·'This Is The End' (Seth
Rogen & Evan Goldberg).

Now in this list the majority of you will see a few movies
that you already recognise such as Kick
Ass 2, The Lone Ranger, This is the End, The Conjuring and the upcoming Gravity. Movies such as Blue Jasmine, Francis Ha and Before Midnight are perhaps on the
radars of the more cine-literate amongst you but, two movies on this list may be unfamiliar to the majority of you, Afternoon
Delight (which is still awaiting a release date in the UK) and Drinking Buddies (due for release
November 1st). After doing some research (thank you http://www.imdb.com) it was the latter which
sparked my interest and for multiple reasons. First and foremost, I had seen
posters for the movie on the internet and knew the cast included actors who I
have enjoyed watching previously such as Jake Johnson (from in-vogue sit-com The New Girl), Olivia Wilde (House M.D., who is also a producer of
the movie), Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect)
and Ron Livingston (Office Space) but
secondly in a world where film spoilers are becoming increasingly difficult to
avoid it was one I was able to approach without preconceived ideas.

The director, Joe Swanberg, doesn’t re-invent the wheel with
his direction, which is solid but workman-like, however it is his script that
is special being both engaging and heartfelt. The film is a mumblecore rom-com
for the thirty-somethings of this current generation and as a man soon to turn
31 something I can really identify with. The film tells the story of Kate (Olivia
Wilde) and Luke (Jake Johnson), two work colleagues at a Chicago brewery, and traces
their relationships with each other and their respective partners. Kate is
trying to play it cool with her music producer boyfriend Chris (Ron Livingston)
and Luke is in the midst of marriage discussions with his girlfriend of six
years Jill (Anna Kendrick). To complicate matters both Kate and Luke are unsure
quite how deep their feelings for each other run. The actors give performances
that feel genuine, they make mistakes and this vulnerability makes the characters
likeable and sympathetic.

I genuinely want people to watch this movie so I will not
tell you how it ends but I will say that it is an interesting study of a friendship
between a guy and a girl. Understand that I am not naive to the point where I
think men and women can’t just be friends but I think many of us at some stage
have had relationships where the line between friendship and romance blurs. A
few months ago I wrote an article where I discussed the glossy or “Hollywood” rom-com
and movies which bucked this clichéd trend, Drinking
Buddies, is helping to redefine the rom-com for this generation….either
that or the director read my article (http://gogokimono.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/hollywoods-relationship-reality-check.html).